Father scammed - any chance of recovering the funds?

brightonelizabeth

Hi,

Apologies if this isn’t the right place to post this.

Over a number of years my elderly father has been scammed by a guy who befriend him when he was depressed and lonely. He’s been tricked into sending between £50,000 - 75,000.

I’ve reported it to the police and they agree it seems to be fraud with a possible grooming element. Realistically does my dad stand any chance of getting his money back?

I’m trying to work out if there is any point in going to the bank. It sounds like authorised push payment fraud, although it was done in person rather than online. According to my father no one at the bank questioned him transferring such high amounts of money which I think they should have done tbh. Annoyingly a lot of the money was transferred a few weeks before the CRM came into place.

Thank you

PS we are based in England, as is the scammer 

MikeJXE

Has the scammer got the money to pay it back ?

 You should go to the bank as you never know 

Sorry I don't know about the law

eskbanker

brightonelizabeth said:

It sounds like authorised push payment fraud, although it was done in person rather than online. According to my father no one at the bank questioned him transferring such high amounts of money which I think they should have done tbh.

How were the transactions made - did he go into the branch and get them to make faster payments on his behalf?  Had the fraudster groomed him as to what to say to deflect bank enquiries?  Beyond age, was there any reason why the bank could/should have considered him to be vulnerable?  Where did £50-75K come from, i.e. did he have a huge balance sitting in a current account or did he have to round it all up from disparate savings accounts?